CROSS CURRENTS
Reggie kept his word as to not interfering with Mary till such time as
she should have seen a little more of the world. How much of the world
in general, and the male portion of it in particular, he was willing
she should see, he could not make up his mind. Sometimes he thought a
very little would sufficiently salve his conscience and make a definite
course of action possible. Reggie was not one of those who feared his
fate. He was always eager to put it to the touch. Inaction was
abhorrent to him. To desire a thing and to do nothing to obtain it
seemed to him sheer foolishness. Whether any amount of effort would
get for him what he desired just now was on the knees of the gods. But
it was the waiting that tried him far more than the uncertainty. He
was not conceited. He was confident, ready to take risks and to accept
responsibility, but that is quite another thing.
Just before her birthday he sent her a little necklet under cover to
Mrs Ffolliot, asking that it might be put with Mary's other presents on
her plate that morning. And she had written to thank him for it, but
he did not answer the letter. He had always been by way of writing to
her from time to time; letters, generally embellished with comic
sketches and full of chaff and nonsense, which were shared by the
family. Lately he had not felt in the mood to write such letters. He
wanted to see her with an unceasing ache of longing intense and
persistent; and if he wrote he wanted to write, not a love
letter--Reggie did not fancy he'd be much of a hand at love
letters--but something intimate and revealing that would certainly be
unsuitable for "family reading."
Then he got two letters from Redmarley that seemed to him to need an
answer.
These were the letters:--
REDMARLEY,
_Tuesday._
DEAR REGGIE,--We were all very excited to see it in the _Gazette_ this
morning, though of course we knew it was coming. The children took the
_Times_ down to Willets at tea-time, and Fusby was at special pains to
ask mother after lunch if there was any chance of Captain Peel coming
down soon. Is there? You won't find me here unless it's very soon,
for I'm actually to be allowed to stay with grannie for quite a long
time. After swearing that I should only go up for the drawing-room,
and that it was nonsense to talk of my going out at all till mother
could take me, the _pater_ has suddenly veered round, and I am to go up
to Woolwich on May-Day, and what's more, he is taking me up himself.
At first I thought I was to go with Grantly when he went back to the
Shop, but that wouldn't do seemingly, Grantly wasn't enough chaperon,
so father's coming just for one night.
Last night we had a dinner-party and the Liberal member took me in. He
is such an odd little man. Very, very good, I should think; very
kind--not hard-hearted and ruthless like some people who write cruel
stories about war--he is a nonconformist of sorts and doesn't do any of
the usual things, so it's a little difficult to talk to him, but mother
managed it--to make him talk, I mean. I heard him murmuring away like
anything while we were playing bridge. She likes him too. He has an
odd way of looking at you as if you were a picture and not a person.
Don't you think it's fun to be going to town on May-Day and to have
proper dinner every night whether there are people or not. I hope
there will be lots of people. Do come to Woolwich while I'm there, and
mind you treat me with great respect.
When is the new story coming out? I wish they'd hurry up. It will be
so exciting to hear people talk about it and to think I know who wrote
it and they don't. Clara Bax came with the Campions last night--do you
remember her? She is _very_ pretty and so clever, understands all
about politics and things like that. Fancy, she sells newspapers in
the street for the Cause. She asked me if I'd help her, and I thought
it would be great fun, but father--you know how he pounces--heard from
the other end of the table, and though just a minute before he'd been
ever so sympathetic with Miss Bax, at once interfered, and said I was
much too ignorant to take any active part as yet, and Grantly frowned
at me across the table. Would you buy a newspaper from me, I wonder?
When father pounces I always feel that I could almost marry an
impossible person just to annoy him; but the worst of it is that I
should have the impossible person always, and I might get rather tired
of it. Why should Miss Bax steal a horse and father beam and pay her
compliments, and yet if I so much as look over the fence he shoos me
away with a pitch-fork.
I wonder if you will get out to India, as you wish? In a way I hope
you won't, because you'd go out in the autumn, wouldn't you? and if you
are stationed anywhere at home you could come sometimes for a few days'
hunting; but of course if you want it very much I want you to have it.
This is a very long letter. Good-bye, Reggie, and heaps of grats. You
a captain and me grown up: we are coming on.--Yours: affectionately,
MARY B. FFOLLIOT.
P.S.--Some fiend in human shape sent Ger a little red book, trumpet,
and bugle notes for the army, and he makes Miss Glover play them and
then practises. There's one thing, it's a little change from the
eternal "cook-house door," but it's very dreadful all the same.
BRIDGE HOUSE, REDMARLEY,
_27th. April._
DEAR SIR,--Excuse the liberty I take in writing to offer you my
congratulations on the announcement in the paper yesterday. Master Ger
and Miss Kitten came to tea with my wife, and the mistress, with her
usual kindness, sent me the paper. When I first knew you, sir, you
were very much the size Master Ger is now, and yet it seems but
yesterday when I was teaching you to throw a fly just beyond the bridge
here. I always look on you as one of our young gentlemen, for you've
come amongst us so many years now and always been so free and pleasant,
and I hope I may have the pleasure of going out with you often in the
future, though Master Ger did say he'd heard that you were thinking of
India. If that is so, I hope you'll make a point of coming down for a
few days early in June, when the fly will be at its best. If this mild
weather continues we ought to get some very sizeable fish.
It's funny to me to think how I've been here twenty-three years come
Michaelmas, and when the present Squire came I never thought I should
stop, he not being fond of sport. If I may say so, you, sir, had a
good deal to do with me stopping on that first summer, me being very
fond of children, and then when they came at the Manor House and the
mistress always sent them down to be shown to us as soon as ever they
went out, I began to feel I'd taken root here, and so I suppose I have.
Master Ger is becoming a first-rate performer on the bugle, he played
for us yesterday, quite wonderful it was. My wife begs to join with me
in respectful congratulations.--Your obedient servant,
WILLIAM WILLETS.
He wrote to Willets at once, promising to come down at the end of May
for a week-end, even if he couldn't get more. He was frightfully busy,
for he was one of the instructors at Chatham, and had many other irons
in the fire as well. He waited till he knew Mary was in Woolwich and
then he wrote to her:--
It was nice of you to send me such pretty grats, and I am truly
appreciative. I also had the jolliest letter from old Willets. He
promises good sport very shortly, and I shall make a point of turning
up at Redmarley when the fly is on the water, if only for a couple of
nights, for when Willets foretells "sizeable fish" you know you're in
for a first-class thing. It will be queer to be at the Manor House and
you away. Only once has that happened to me, the year you were at
school, and now "all that's shuv be'ind you" and you're out and dancing
about. I shall certainly have urgent private affairs in Woolwich
during the next month. Talk of respect! When was I ever anything but
grovelling? And once I have gazed upon your portrait in train and
feathers I shall be reduced to such a state of timidity you won't know
me.
The other day I met your friend Clara Bax selling _Votes for Women_ at
the Panton Street corner of Leicester Square, and she hadn't at all a
Hurrah face on. I greeted her and bought one of the beastly little
papers, and went on my way. But something caused me to look back, and
I beheld Miss Bax seemingly in difficulties with two young
feller-me-lads, who evidently had no intention of going on. There was
no policeman handy--besides, there's a coolness at present between
members of the force and the fair militants--so I went back and dealt
faithfully with Miss Bax's admirers, and they departed, I regret to
say, blaspheming.
Miss Bax seemed rather shaken, the type was evidently new to her, and I
suggested that she should quit her pitch for the moment and come and
have lunch with me; so we went together to the _Petit Riche_, where we
consumed an excellent omelette; and the bundle of papers, which I,
Mary, had nobly carried through the streets of London, sat on a chair
between us and did chaperon.
Personally, I see no reason why women should not have votes if they
want 'em, but I see every reason why no woman, and above all no young
woman, should sell papers anywhere, more especially in Leicester
Square. I'd like to give the Panks, and the Peths, and the Hicemen a
bit of my mind on the subject. The mere thought of you ever indulging
in such unseemly vagaries fills me with horror unspeakable. Talk of
the Squire! Pouncing and pitchforks wouldn't be in it with me, I can
tell you, and yet Miss Bax isn't an orphan.
That very day I met a lugubrious procession of females, encased in
large sandwich-boards proclaiming a meeting somewhere. They were
dismally dodging the traffic, and looked about as dejected as they
could look--ladies every one of them. I begin to think old England's
no place for women when they're reduced to that sort of thing--what do
you say to India for a change?
The story will be out next month, but you won't like it--too technical.
I hope young Grantly's doing some work. This term counts a lot, and he
mustn't pass out low for the honour of the family.
My salaams to the General and Mrs Grantly, and to you--my remembrances.
Do you, by the way, remember "our last ride together" in January? When
shall we have another? Would the General let us ride in the park one
day if I could get off?--Yours,
REGGIE.
P.S.--Why the kind and blameless member for Marlehouse? Has the Squire
changed his politics? It's all very well for you to say the young man
looked at you as if you were a picture. We've another name for that
sort of sheep's eyes where I come from. He'd better not let me catch
him at it.
Eloquent came to the conclusion that it is very difficult to pay court
to a girl who belongs to what his father was wont to call "the
classes." He wondered how they managed it. Such girls, it seemed to
him, were never left alone for a minute. One's only chance was to see
them at parties in a crowd, and if you did dine at their houses, there
was always bridge directly after dinner, when conversation was
restricted to "I double hearts," or "with you," or "No." He studied
the rules of bridge industriously, for he found on inquiry that even
Cabinet Ministers did not disdain it as a recreation. Therefore Dalton
shared with blue-books the little table by his bed.
It's a far cry from Westminster to Woolwich, and in spite of
indefatigable spade-work on his part, it was well on in the third week
in May before he so much as caught a glimpse of Mary Ffolliot.
Then one morning he saw her in Bond Street with her grandmother. She
was on the opposite side of the street rather ahead of him, but he knew
that easy strolling walk, the flat back, and proud carriage of the
head: that head with its burnished hair coiled smoothly under a
bewitching hat. They stopped to look in at Asprey's window, and he
dashed across the road in the full stream of traffic. Two indignant
taxi-drivers swore, and he reached the curb breathless, but uninjured,
just as they went into the shop.
He stood staring at the window, keeping at the same time a sharp
look-out on the door.
What an age they were!
He had just decided that the only thing to do was to go in and buy
something, when they came out.
Mary saw him at once, and his round face looked so wistful that she
greeted him with quite unnecessary warmth. She recalled him to Mrs
Grantly, who, remembering vaguely that he was a young man who had
"risen from the ranks," was also more cordial than the occasion
demanded.
He walked up Bond Street with them, piloted them across Piccadilly, and
turned with them down Haymarket, so plainly delighted to see them, so
nervous, so pathetically anxious to please, that Mrs Grantly's
hospitable instincts, fatally easy to rouse where pity played a part,
overcame her discretion. Her husband and her daughter used to declare
that she had a perfect genius for encumbering herself with impossible
people--and repenting afterwards. With dismay she realised that
Eloquent had, apparently, attached himself to them. Short of cruelly
wounding his feelings, she saw herself walking about London all day,
accompanied by this painfully polite young man. It seemed impossible
to call a taxi, and leave him desolate there on the pavement
unless . . . Mrs Grantly's heart was hopelessly soft where animals
were concerned, and just then Eloquent reminded her of nothing so much
as an affectionate dog, allowed to frisk gaily to the front door, and
cruelly shut in on the wrong side, as she said--
"We've got to meet my husband at the Stores, Mr Gallup, perhaps you'll
kindly get us a taxi, as I'm rather tired."
His woebegone face was too much for her, and she added, "We're always
at home on Sunday afternoons."
Mary rather wondered at her grannie.
The taxi drove away and Eloquent walked down Haymarket as though he
were treading on air. To-day was Friday. Sunday, oh blessed day! was
the day after to-morrow.
There were clovers nodding in her hat, a wide-brimmed fine straw hat
that threw soft shadows over her blue eyes and turned them dark as the
clear water underneath Redmarley Bridge. And he would see her again on
Sunday.
That lady, that handsome portly lady, he had been afraid of her at
first, she looked so large and imposing, but how kind she was! How
wonderfully kind and hearty she had been. It was she who had invited
him. "We are always at home on Sundays," she said. Surely that meant
he might go more than once?
That night he made his maiden speech in the House.
* * * * * *
Reggie went down to Redmarley at the beginning of June from Saturday
afternoon till Sunday evening. The Squire had a bad cold and was
confined to the house. His nerves vibrated, so did the tempers of
other people, but Reggie did not care. He joined Willets at the river
and fished till dinner-time. Directly after dinner he went out again
and they had splendid sport till nearly ten. Willets walked with him
back to the house, and Reggie had a curious feeling that Willets wanted
to tell him something and couldn't come to the point. So strong was
this feeling that as they parted he said, "I shan't go to bed yet,
Willets. It's such a perfect night--may stroll down to the bridge, and
if you're still up we might have a cigar together."
He went into the house, chatted a while to Mrs Ffolliot and the Squire,
and when they went to bed let himself out very quietly and strolled
down the drive and out of the great gates to the bridge. The perfect
peace of the warm June night, the yellow moonlight on the quiet water,
the wide-spanned bridge, the long straggling street of irregular gabled
houses so kindly and so sheltering with their overhanging eaves, the
dear familiar charm of it all seemed to grip Reggie by the throat and
caused an unwonted smarting in his eyes.
The village was absolutely deserted save for one motionless figure
sitting on the wall at the far end of the bridge.
"Hullo, Willets," Reggie called, "not in bed yet?"
"I'm always a bit wakeful when the fly's up, sir; the river seems to
draw me, and I can't leave it."
"Have a cigar," said Reggie, and sat down beside him.
They smoked in silence for a few minutes till Willets said--
"Seen anything of Miss Mary up there, sir?"
"No, Willets, I haven't been able to get away for a minute till now,
but I may manage to run down to Woolwich next week just to buck to the
General about my catch. You'll have him down then post haste--I
bet----"
"I suppose, sir," said Willets, with studied carelessness, "you never
happened to come across the young man that's member for these parts?"
"What, young Gallup? I believe I saw him once. He's making quite a
name for himself I hear, his maiden speech was in all the papers. By
the way though, I _did_ hear of him the other day in a letter I had
from Miss Mary. They'd all been to dine at the House of Commons with
him, and had no end of a time."
"Well I _am_ damned!" said Willets.
He said it seriously, almost devoutly, and Reggie turned right round to
stare at him.
"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, but I really was fairly
flabbergasted."
He stood up sturdy and respectful in a patch of moonlight, and his keen
brown eyes raked Reggie's as though they would read his very soul.
It wasn't an easy soul to read, and Reggie knew that Willets had
something on his mind, so he waited.
"I beg your pardon, sir," Willets said again. He had never got over
the feeling that Reggie was one of the young gentlemen, and that it
behoved him to be careful of his language in front of him.
Reggie Peel laughed. "Look here, Willets," he said, "what's your
objection? Why shouldn't they go to the House of Commons to dine with
Gallup if it amuses them?"
"I don't know, sir, I'm sure, but I was took aback. An' in a small
place like this it's certain to make talk. That old Miss Gallup, now,
she'll be boasting everywhere that our Miss Mary went to dine with her
nephew, just as she did when he went to a dinner party up at the house,
and for us as _belongs_ to the house--well, we don't relish it. I
hope, sir," Willets went on in quite a different tone, "that you'll
make it convenient to go up and see after Miss Mary?"
The hawk's eyes were fixed unwinkingly on Reggie's face, so lean and
sallow and set; the moonlight accentuated the rather hollow cheeks.
and cast black shadows round his eyes, which looked green and sinister.
Suddenly he smiled, and when Reggie smiled, his whole face altered.
"Out with it, Willets," he said, "what maggot have you got in your head
now? You're worried about something; you may as well tell me. I'm
safe as a church."
"I'd like to know, sir," Willets remarked in a detached impersonal
tone, "what's your opinion of mixed marriages?"
"_What_ sort of marriages?"
"Well marriages where one of the parties has had a different bringing
up to the other. Now suppose, sir--do you know Miss Shipway--over to
Marlehouse; her father's got that big shop top of the market-place full
of bonnets and mantles and such--good-looking girl she is----"
"I'm afraid I don't know the lady, Willets; why?"
"Well, sir, it's this way. She'll have a tidy bit of money when old
Shipway dies; her mother was cook at the Fleece, but they've got on.
Well now, sir, suppose you was to go after Miss Shipway-----"
Reggie's eyes twinkled. "It might be a most sensible proceeding on my
part--a poor devil like me--if as you say she's a nice girl and will
have a lot of money. Will you give me an introduction?"
"I'm not jokin', sir, nor taking the liberty to propose anything of the
sort; it's only----"
"A hypothetical case?"
"That's it, sir. I mean suppose a gentleman like yourself was to marry
a girl like her, do you think you'd be happy?"
"Surely it would all depend on whether they liked each other--and liked
the same things----"
"Ah, sir, that's it. _Would_ you like the same things, do you suppose?"
"Well, Willets, I don't see that you've any cause to worry.
Unfortunately I don't know the young lady, so I can't see how I'm to
get any forrader."
"Suppose, sir, a young _lady_, like what the Mistress was, should marry
a man in quite a different rank from herself, do you think _they'd_ be
happy?"
"It depends," said Reggie, "what sort of a chap he was. People rise,
you know."
"Well, suppose he did, would they happy?"
"I couldn't say, Willets, I'm sure. Is it any particular young lady
you're worried about?"
Willets sat down on the wall. "In my time,"
he said slowly, "I've seen a good bit; and all I have seen, seems to me
to show that it's safest for ladies and gentlemen to stick to their own
class. But I thought I'd like to have your opinion, sir."
For five minutes they sat in silence, then Willets remarked, "And you
think you'll be going up to town next week, sir?"
"I think so. I shall try anyway."
"Would you be so good, sir, as to say to General Grantly that he'd
better not put off much longer if he wants the best of the fishing."
"I'll be sure and tell him, Willets. I suppose we must go to bed.
Many thanks for the splendid sport. I have to get back to Chatham
to-morrow, worse luck, and with the Sunday trains it takes a deuce of a
time."
"Good-night, sir, I'm glad you managed to come, even though it was for
but one night."
Reggie let himself in very quietly and went up to his room.
He lit his pipe and went to the window to smoke it.
The moonlight was so brilliant that he drew a letter from his pocket
and read it easily:
"Dear Reggie," it ran, "yours was a lovely long letter. I'm glad you
rescued poor Clara, and you needn't be afraid of me selling papers or
carrying sandwich boards. I'm much too busy having a lovely time. Oh
_never_ have I had such a time, but I grieve to tell you that both
Ganpy and I are very shocked at the behaviour of Grannie. She is
having an outrageous flirtation with young Mr Gallup, our member. It's
all very well for her to say she is forming him. She is undermining
all his most cherished principles, and if his nonconformist
constituents hear of his goings on I don't believe they'll ever have
him again.
"She has taught him auction: he played with her last _Sunday_ afternoon
because it was too wet to be out in the garden. She has sent him to
lots of plays: he came with us one night to the Chocolate Soldier; she
talks politics to him by the hour and demolishes his pet theories. She
tells him that he has, up to now, thought so many things wrong that he
can't possibly have any sense of proportion, or properly discriminate
what really matters and what doesn't; and she is so brisk and masterful
and delightfully amusing--you know Grannie's way--that the poor young
man doesn't know whether he's on his head or his heels, and simply
follows blindly wherever that reckless woman leads. He gave a dinner
for us in the House the other night and got Ganpy a seat in the
Stranger's Gallery. He couldn't get us into the Ladies' Gallery
because of the silly rule about only wives and sisters or near
relations made since the suffragette fusses, but he showed us all about
and it was simply fascinating. Of course Grannie met lots of members
she knew, and we enjoyed ourselves awfully. We are going to tea on the
Terrace next week. The dance at the Shop was ripping, and you needn't
think I only danced with cadets. I danced with majors and colonels,
and a beautiful captain in the Argyle and Sutherland, but I've come to
the conclusion that the jolliest thing is to be Ganpy's wife on these
occasions. You never saw such court as gets paid to Grannie. She
never has a dull minute.
"Grantly went home on Sat. just for the night, and he says it's all too
beautiful for words. Sometimes I feel wicked to be missing it, and I
get homesick for mother and the children; but I do enjoy it all. When
are you coming up to play about too? You stern, industrious young man."
Reggie folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.
"So that's what old Willets was driving at," he thought. He leaned out
again to shake the ash out of his pipe. In the far east there was a
pearly streak. "Daylight," he muttered, "--and by Jove I see it."